Child Diabetes
Learning your child has diabetes is quite a shock. This is for parents whose child has just been diagnosed. It covers the basics of diabetes treatment, as well as issues you may experience in the months and years ahead. It's not meant to replace advice and education from your child's healthcare team. Rather, use this as a reference as you begin your diabetes journey.
Type 1 diabetes is caused by an autoimmune disorder-a problem with the body's immune system. In a healthy body, specialized cells (called beta cells) in the pancreas make insulin. Insulin is a hormone that allows the body to use energy from food. In type 1 diabetes, the immune system mistakes beta cells for invaders and attacks them. When enough beta cells are destroyed, symptoms of diabetes appear.
In type 2
diabetes, the beta cells still produce insulin. However, either the cells do not respond properly to the insulin or the insulin produced naturally is not enough to meet the needs of the body. So insulin is usually still present in a person with type 2 diabetes, but it does not work as well as it should.
Some people with type 2 can keep it under control by losing weight, changing their diet, and increasing their exercise. Others take one or more medications, including insulin.
A diabetes myth - diabetes is not caused by eating too much sugar. This myth probably began when people with diabetes were absolutely forbidden from consuming sugar. Researchers no longer believe this. Your child can still have all of her favorite sweets as long as they are scheduled in her eating plan.
A sign
of diabetes often goes undiagnosed because many of its symptoms seem so harmless. Recent studies indicate that the early detection of diabetes symptoms and treatment can decrease the chance of developing the complications of diabetes.
Some diabetes symptoms include:
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Frequent urination
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Excessive thirst
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Extreme hunger
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Unusual weight loss
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Increased fatigue
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Irritability
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Blurry vision
If you have one or more of these diabetes symptoms, see your doctor right away
Learn about diabetes complications and other related concerns.
If you don't take good care of diabetes, over time, it can cause some problems. How you and your child take care of diabetes now affects what happens later on. You may not think it's that big a deal if your child's blood glucose is a little high. Your child may feel just fine, but hyperglycemia is a strain on the body and it can cause problems later on. These problems are called complications.
Some diabetes complications include:
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Neuropathy is nerve damage. It can cause problems in legs as well as other systems in the body.
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Retinopathy is damage to the eyes.
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Nephropathy is kidney disease. The kidneys filter waste out of the blood when they don't work well, poisons can build up.
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Heart disease is more common in people with diabetes.
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There are treatments to help people with these problems. For example, eye surgery can often keep retinopathy from turning into blindness.
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But the best treatment is to take care of diabetes now and as your child gets older. Good diabetes care now can delay or prevent complications later.
Learn more about diabetes complications.
It can be difficult for children to understand why diabetes care is so important. Often children and teens have trouble understanding how what they do can effect the future. Children and especially teens may sometimes want to slack off on
diabetes care and say that complications will "never happen to me." Or, they may be the opposite and feel like they will have problems no matter what, so why bother?
If this happens, it is important to try to understand where your child is coming from. It may help to talk a little bit about how frustrating
diabetes care can be. Let your child vent. Then steer your talk back to how good diabetes care today can help prevent problems in the future.
Why does my child have diabetes?
One of your first questions about diabetes is the hardest to answer: Why my child? You may feel guilty about your genes, or think that you caused diabetes by letting your child eat too many sweets. In fact, no one really knows why certain people have diabetes. Researchers have been working on the question for years without a definite answer.
Genes do have a role in diabetes, but how much of a role is uncertain. Close relatives of people with diabetes (siblings, parents, and children) have a greater chance to develop it themselves. However, research has shown that diabetes is not caused by genetics alone.
To complicate matters further, the majority of people who develop type 1 diabetes have no history of diabetes in their family. Researchers in diabetes are working to discover what environmental factors, when combined with a genetic predisposition, might begin the chain of events that leads to diabetes. No one has found conclusive results yet.
People with type
ii diabetes in their families are at greater risk of developing diabetes themselves. Other risk factors for type 2 diabetes include being overweight, physically inactive, or belonging to certain ethnic groups. African American, Latino, Native American, and Asian Americans are at higher risk.
Cure
Research into preventing and/or curing diabetes is ongoing. Current prevention trials involve treating close relatives of people with diabetes to see if certain medicines can prevent diabetes in those at higher risk of developing it.
Currently, the only known "cure" for type 1 diabetes is a pancreas transplant; however, such a surgery brings with it serious risks to a patient's health. Transplant patients must take powerful drugs for the rest of their lives. These drugs suppress their immune system, so that their body won't reject the transplant. Having a suppressed immune system leaves the body with very little protection from other diseases, so pancreas transplants are not the answer. Researchers are also experimenting with transplanting just the beta cells. This treatment, though promising in theory, has not been successful in large enough numbers to be viable.
Although, there is no cure for diabetes, advances in type diabetes
treatment are being made all the time.
If your child has type 2 diabetes, it may be possible for him to stop taking
diabetes
medication one day. Some people with type 2 diabetes are able to manage diabetes by treating it with exercise and careful meal planning. But this is not a cure. Careful meal planning and exercise may help children with type 1 diabetes reduce the amount of insulin they take, stay within their target range, and feel better.
Good diabetes care can be complicated and adjusting to lifestyle change can be difficult. But the results -- a healthy, long life for your child -- are worth it.
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